What to expect when expecting…to have your child in competitive dance. Part Deux. [& FREE printable!]

This is the second part of the blog I wrote about the expectancy of putting your dancer in competitive dance. If you haven’t read it yet, do it now here.

This will be more of the extra charges (or other things) that might not be included in your initial meeting before signing that contract and agreeing to competitive dance. I want you to be completely prepared and know what you’re getting into. I’m not trying to scare, but prepare. I want you to be ready. I got you, dance mom.

In my previous blog about what to expect was about the major spendings. You have the monthly charge, the costume charges, and the competition entry fees. I also mentioned that it requires a lot of time. Depending on the age, might not be an issue. You could just drop off the kid and do your thing. It’s usually a weeknight, but still, you can’t really plan to do anything. We do a lot of “We can’t. We have dance.”

In this blog, I’m going to mention more of the extras that you might have not thought about would be included in the competitive world.

One of the bigger charges would be the choreographer. We’re a smaller studio and we still did this so I imagine many studios hire professional choreographer to choreo at least one of the dances. This set us back $100. She was here one day for a few hours.

Let me just step aside a little. Can you imagine?! Our competitive team includes 7 littles and 9 big girls (& boy). That’s $1600 she earned in like 3-4 hours by just dancing. I need to rethink my career.

The other bigger charge would be the workshops that most studios will require you to attend. There are companies that travel with a set of instructors for each type of dance. Your dancer will go through an ALL day of learning new techniques, new moves, new dances, etc. I couldn’t even imagine how tired those kids must be after.

So there will be different companies setting those workshops up so it’ll depend on which you choose but it cost us $90 to attend one of those. And if you’re a parent and want to watch, it’s another $20.

Okay, then you have shoes. Oh, dance shoes. With four girls, I feel I am buying dance shoes every week. Not really but more than the average mom, that’s for sure. Between their feet growing like an inch a day and somehow our shoes are able to grow little legs and walk off on their own because “I know I put them in the dance bag,” I buy shoes a lot. I’ve made a point to always buy dance shoes when I go to consignment sales. I don’t care what size, I just buy. They’re like $3-5. Now I have a huge bag of spare dance shoes. This way, when ours decide to take a walk, I’m prepared. Saves me money, too.

But this will also depend on the studio on how fancy they want to get. Usually, when you just dance recreational, you’ll run to Target or Payless, (or like me, have a bag of them) grab some shoes and you’re good to go. Some studios will want you to order shoes through them especially for competition. They want everyone to match or add that something extra to the costume, like just this past weekend I saw red tap shoes. They were pretty cool but it’s like now you’re stuck with red tap shoes. They better continue to buy red costumes for all their tap dances.

And I was sitting by our studio’s owner and we were watching another tap dance and she was like, “Do you hear how good those tap shoes sound?”

And I was like, “Yea,” I guess. I mean it just sounded like tap shoes to me.

She was like, “Their studio requires those shoes and they are like $650. But that’s why. You can really hear them.”

Do what now?! There is no chance in hell you will catch me paying $650 for some damn tap shoes. I don’t care if they sound like singing angels.

So once again, it will depend on the studio on what shoes they want you to have. So far, we’ve only had to order jazz through them because there are different companies that make tan shoes and they might look a little off shade or be shaped differently. That cost $46. They haven’t made the tap shoes through them required yet but I heard they are $80.

And then you have the extra accessories such as tights, bras, bloomers, embellishments, etc.

Most studios will just order new tights without question. Our studio will ask if we have any and many of the dancers will already have some from previous dances. I always try to find my own but you have to be careful on the color and making sure your dancer matches everyone else. There is a certain dancing tan color. And then there is the ballet pink which is not pink at all but like another shade of tan.

My dancer is not in need of dancer bras yet but they will order them if a costume calls for it. Most dance websites will have options. One of the costumes we have this season needed some for the big girls and it was $43. Jaw drop. I’ve bought VS bras for cheaper than that.

Then they may want you to get bloomers to go underneath your skimpy costume. Not sure on prices on those. There are many options.

And then of course you have the extras to make sure your dancer stands out which would include make-up. If you’re not a make-up person, get ready to be one. The million of lights that shine right on your dancer will wash her or him out if they don’t have any make-up on.

When you go to this competitions, you will see that some studios will make sure to add the details. Intricate hair styles, body glitter, embellishments in their hair, embellishments on their face, you name it. I even saw stars painted on girls’ hair.

The last thing that I will mention will be the dance bag. I’m mentioning this because obviously your dancer will need one. Now you are not required to spend an insane amount on a bag BUT I’m going to tell you, if your dancer is in for the long haul, you might as well go ahead and do it. You’re spending all of this money, what’s another couple hundred. Right?!

So I’m sure you’ve seen these huge bags with the garment racks that pull out and you can hang your costumes right then and there. Your child is going to come to hers or his first competition, see these and think that there is no possible way they can come to another competition without that dance bag. I personally have not purchased one of these YET but I am starting the process of shopping for one. I don’t believe we desperately need one for competition because there is only three costumes but it would come in handy for the recital. With four girls dancing, I will probably have around 20 costumes to keep track of and throwing them all in a duffel bag and then searching for a certain one will be a pain.